John A. Caruso’s The Appalachian Frontier is a stirring drama of the beginnings of American westward expansion. It traces the advance of the frontier in the area between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers and the development of the American character—those attitudes toward personal liberty and dignity that have come to epitomize our national ideal. The Appalachian Frontier is no mere catalog of facts; it is a recreation of life. Not until about 1650, more than a generation after the first English settlements were established on the eastern coast, did organized bands of white explorers, hunters and fur trappers venture very far into the trackless back country claimed by the British Crown. Beginning with those earliest scouting parties The Appalachian Frontier presses with the pioneers past the Fall Line and the pine barrens into the Piedmont of Virginia, on through gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Great Valley of the Appalachians, through the Great Valley to the jagged peaks of the Allegheny Front and, finally, over those peaks into the rich country of Kentucky and Tennessee. As the frontiersman advances he discovers that the rules prevailing in the European-dominated eastern settlements do not apply in his new situation. Thus we see him formulate the rudiments of a law of his own. As his life grows more complex, he frames compacts and, finally; constitutions peculiarly adapted to the exigencies of frontier living. We are present at the inception of the fluid democracy that later engulfed the more stable coastal colonies and ultimately came to characterize the government of the United States. The story closes, quite properly, with the admission of Tennessee into the Union in 1796. In John A. Caruso’s bright, informal, sometimes almost racy telling of the tale, historical personages emerge as real people whose triumphs and heartaches we share, with whose deficiencies and inadequacies we sympathize, and in whose hours of nobility we rejoice.
John A. Caruso’s The Appalachian Frontier is a stirring drama of the beginnings of American westward expansion. It traces the advance of the frontier in the area between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers and the development of the American character—those attitudes toward personal liberty and dignity that have come to epitomize our national ideal. The Appalachian Frontier is no mere catalog of facts; it is a recreation of life. Not until about 1650, more than a generation after the first English settlements were established on the eastern coast, did organized bands of white explorers, hunters and fur trappers venture very far into the trackless back country claimed by the British Crown. Beginning with those earliest scouting parties The Appalachian Frontier presses with the pioneers past the Fall Line and the pine barrens into the Piedmont of Virginia, on through gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Great Valley of the Appalachians, through the Great Valley to the jagged peaks of the Allegheny Front and, finally, over those peaks into the rich country of Kentucky and Tennessee. As the frontiersman advances he discovers that the rules prevailing in the European-dominated eastern settlements do not apply in his new situation. Thus we see him formulate the rudiments of a law of his own. As his life grows more complex, he frames compacts and, finally; constitutions peculiarly adapted to the exigencies of frontier living. We are present at the inception of the fluid democracy that later engulfed the more stable coastal colonies and ultimately came to characterize the government of the United States. The story closes, quite properly, with the admission of Tennessee into the Union in 1796. In John A. Caruso’s bright, informal, sometimes almost racy telling of the tale, historical personages emerge as real people whose triumphs and heartaches we share, with whose deficiencies and inadequacies we sympathize, and in whose hours of nobility we rejoice.
Few people would argue with the films selected for detailed notices and reviews in this book. Many of the movies are award-winners, and most chalked up impressive figures at the box-office. Who would dispute the inclusion of Citizen Kane or Rebecca or The Best Years of Our Lives? However, along with The Yearling and Reap the Wild Wind and Hello, Frisco, Hello, I've also included a few surprises. A magnificent publication. -- Rodney Bourke in International Movie Making (April 2006).
Hollywood movies are famous for promoting negative stereotypes of all kinds, especially against minorities, women, Southerners, and Christians. To what extent are biographical films selected for production according to certain biases, conscious or unconscious, among the Hollywood elite? An expert on the U.S. film industry gives readers brief synopses of Hollywood biopics produced and/ or released from 1912 through 1994. This survey provides the basis for discussion and analysis. Tracking these one-sided depictions over a longer period of time, the patterns of bias - and the source of the problem - become more clear. The problem appears to be that most of the people who have green-light authority in the U.S. film industry - for either the production and/or distribution of a motion picture - share a common ethnic/religious/cultural background. Thus, the stories of their own cohort and those of all other ethnic, religious and/or cultural groups (whose members seldom achieve positions of power in Hollywood) are being filtered through the cultural sensibilities of a single group. John Cones suggests that the solution could lie in increasing diversity at the highest levels in the U.S. film industry.
Spanning two and a half centuries, from the earliest contacts in the 1540s to the crumbling of Spanish power in the 17908, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds is a panoramic view of Indian peoples and Spanish and French intruders in the early Southwest. The primary focus is the world of the American Indian, ranging from the Caddos in the east to the Hopis in the west, and including the histories of the Pueblo, Apache, Navajo, Ute, and Wichita peoples. Within this region, from Texas to New Mexico, the Comanches played a key, formative role, and no less compelling is the story of the Hispanic frontier peoples who weathered the precarious, often arduous process of evolving coexistence with the Indians on the northern frontier of New Spain. First published in 1975, this second edition includes a new preface and afterword by Elizabeth A. H. John, in which she discusses current research issues and the status of the Indian peoples of the Southwest.
Los Angeles Police Department homicide detectives, Joe Kellermann and his partner, Mike Rodriguez, are drawn into a baffling case, when top Hollywood television producer, Jonathan Barry vanishes without a trace. As the story unfolds, the detectives soon become enmeshed in a web of lust, passion, betrayal and murder-for-hire. Evidence soon leads to nightclub owner, Tony Caruso, who is the alleged connection between the two hired killers and Barrys wife, Diane. Police are shocked when Caruso himself is found dead in his Hollywood Hills home. Was it suicide or homicide? This is a story of violence, blackmail and murder. A taut, fast-moving tale that probes the sordid and seamy comers of the City of Angels--a city on the dark side of the sun.
More than 50 of Hollywood's most famous movies are examined in detail in this book, which provides full cast and production credits, release dates, background information, DVD suppliers, plus up-to-date assessments and reviews. This information not only covers almost everything you would want to know about some of your favorite movies, but guides you towards further classic films you might enjoy! To name just twenty of the more than fifty titles, they include An American in Paris, The Apartment, The Caine Mutiny, Casablanca, China Seas, Duck Soup, From Here To Eternity, Gone With The Wind, The Greatest Show On Earth, If I Had a Million, In Old Chicago, It Happened One Night, Laura, Out of the Past, The Palm Beach Story, the Picture of Dorian Gray, A Place in the Sun, two versions of State Fair, The Wizard of Oz, Wonder Bar, and Yankee Doodle Dandy.
No less than 150 classic western movies are surveyed, ranging from super productions like "The Big Country", "Destry Rides Again", "The Mark of Zorro", "Red River", "The Searchers", "The Spoilers" and "Unconquered" to the output of such popular "B" western film stars as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Randolph Scott, William Boyd, Johnny Mack Brown, Tim Holt and Wayne Morris. Plus a big tip of the sombrero to Charles Starrett and John Wayne.
Over 1,200 DVDs in the mystery, suspense and film noir categories were examined and rated for this illustrated guide. The book is divided into two main sections. In the first, 218 movies are given the glamour treatment with comprehensive details of players and crews, plus background information and reviews. In the second section, essential details on over 500 films are briefly described. Bonus articles includes a survey of "The Thin Man" series, "Sherlock Holmes," "Humphrey Bogart versus Alan Ladd," "Raymond Chandler on the Big Screen" and "The Big Clock." This book will not only prove most useful for all movie fans, but will enthrall and entertain for years to come.
This third collection of widescreen wonders photographed in CinemaScope, focuses on such popular movies as "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," "Cleopatra," "Three Coins in the Fountain," "Bus Stop," "There's No Business Like Show Business," "The Seven Year Itch," "Let's Make Love," "Peyton Place," "North to Alaska," "The Longest Day," "The Eddy Duchin Story," "Far from the Madding Crowd," "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," "The Helen Morgan Story," "A Star Is Born" and "2001: A Space Odyssey.
Providing an overview of the entire thriller genre, this book examines over 160 movies from classic Hollywood and British studios, including such essential film noir entries as "Murder, My Sweet," "The Dark Corner," "The Maltese Falcon" and "Afraid To Talk." Great cinema detectives are represented by William Powell (all six of his Thin Man pictures are detailed and discussed), Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes), Warner Oland (Charlie Chan), Sidney Toler (Charlie Chan), Peter Ustinov (Hercule Poirot), Margaret Rutherford (all four of her Miss Marple films are covered), and others including the Saint, the Falcon, Bulldog Drummond and Philo Vance. From director Alfred Hitchock comes "Notorious," "Saboteur," "Number 17" and "Rich and Strange." A few comedies and spoofs, such as "Satan Met a Lady" (an amazing re-make of the original "Maltese Falcon" with Bette Davis and Warren William) and "Who Done It?" (with Abbott and Costello) round out the survey.
Famous features such as "Sherlock Holmes Faces Death," "Johnny Allegro," "My Forbidden Past," "His Kind of Woman," "The Big Carnival," and "After the Thin Man" are examined, plus the "Bulldog Drummond" series, and a number of serials including "The Clutching Hand," "Chick Carter, Detective," "Panther Girl of the Congo," "Holt of the Secret Service" and "The Last of the Mohicans." Two bonus features are monographs on Robert Siodmak (of "Cobra Woman," "The Phantom Lady," "The Spiral Staircase," etc.) and Otto Preminger, who made "Laura," "Fallen Angel," "Whirlpool," "Where the Sidewalk Ends," "The 13th Letter" and "Angel Face.
Originally published in 1842, John Will M. Breazeale's Life as It Is is an insightful--and at times chilling--collection of essays on a variety of subjects relating to life in early East Tennessee. Though little is known about the author, a frontier lawyer and editor of the Tennessee Journal from 1837 to 1838, scholars of the nineteenth-century South, Tennessee historians, and even true crime buffs will find his observations of considerable interest. The first chapters present a history of Tennessee from its first European exploration through the state's admission to the Union. Later chapters highlight the state's unique geographic features, followed by a gruesome account of the murderous rampage of Micajah and Wiley Harp, who terrorized settlers along the line separating eastern Kentucky and Tennessee at the turn of the nineteenth century. Breazeale next offers his thoughts on the practice of political "electioneering," recounting a fictional canvass in a typical congressional district. Life as It Is concludes with several chapters noting various features of Breazeale's Tennessee, including Native American "antiquities," the founding of the state government, and an early religious revival. Breazeale's account both complements and corrects Judge John Haywood's better-known Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee, revealing the richly varied attitudes of early Tennessee pioneers toward their history, society, politics, and natural environments. J. W. M. Breazeale was a lawyer and editor of the Tennessee Journal from 1837 to 1838. Jonathan M. Atkins, professor of history at Berry College in Mt. Berry, Georgia, is the author of numerous articles and the book Parties, Politics, and the Sectional Conflict in Tennessee, 1832-1861.
If it were not for the vision and enterprise of Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century-Fox, chances are none of us would be enjoying widescreen films today. Instead, we'd still be watching movies and TV on the same postage-stamp screen that became standard when movies began to talk in 1927. This survey of Fox's contributions to the CinemaScope Revolution which that studio started back in 1953, examines no less than 140 key films (with extensive cast and technical credits, plus release details and other background information, including prizes and awards).
Remember "Humpy," the talking camel? You'll find him in this book, along with a host of other legendary characters from Alice in Wonderland through the Mysterious Mr Wong to Wild Bill Hickok. Movie stars featured include Lon Chaney, Kay Francis, Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo, Constance Bennett, Adolphe Menjou and Will Rogers. Directors include John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch and Fred Zinnemann. It all adds up to many hours of pleasure for classic movie fans who can thumb through details of award-winning films, popular pictures, and little-known masterpieces that deserve wider recognition. Yes, there are famous "B" movies too, like "Sleepers West" and its re-make, "The Narrow Margin.
Kay Francis came of age in the Roaring Twenties and relished the era's hedonistic pursuits. Her career as an actress was launched at the same time, and before her death in 1968, she had appeared on many theater stages, in more than 60 films, on radio, in USO tours, as a model, and on television. The tall, stylish actress had a husky voice and dark beauty that was striking on film. Despite her financial success, relaxed morals, and life as a socialite, the millionaire actress shunned luxuries such as limousines and sprawling estates popular among Hollywood elite. The actress, who insisted she wanted to be forgotten, left behind scrapbooks, boxes of memorabilia and detailed diaries. These rich resources help provide an exhaustive look at the life of one of Hollywood's most intriguing early stars. Francis' biography is the heart of this book, beginning with her family background and her upbringing by a vaudevillian actress mother. The story of her extensive career and never-ending romantic pursuits is peppered with comments from the media and her own diaries, and supplemented with ample photographs. A chronology gives dates of theater openings, film releases, marriages, television and radio appearances, births and deaths. A filmography includes complete cast and credit lists.
Once by far Hollywood's largest category of popular movies, Westerns are now out of fashion with the movie-going public, but they still hold a commanding presence on DVD. Until recently, Westerns were one of the most popular DVD categories, third only to action and science fiction. Many, many titles from the 1930s and 1940s were made by small, independent companies that no longer exist. A huge number of westerns are therefore in the public domain and are now available on DVD from outlets like Alpha and Grapevine. In fact, there are currently so many titles on DVD, that guides like "World's Worst Westerns" are not a luxury or an addenda, but an absolute necessity for collectors who wish to spend their money wisely by buying titles they will enjoy! In fact, for western fans like myself, a book like "World's Worst Westerns" is not just a novelty, but an absolute necessity!
As an American woman who attained the highest rank in her chosen field, she is an example of what can be accomplished through a combination of natural talent and the will to succeed. Rise's career is unique in that it encompassed opera, recordings, radio, films, television, academic, and arts administration. She was a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera for twenty-three seasons. In the 1940s she had her own radio show, she appeared in a classic film. In the 1950s she was a popular guest on television, her recordings sold in the thousands. The complete Carmen has been in print for over fifty years, the Mannes School of Music survived a bleak period in the 1960s because of her, the Metropolitan Opera National Company was launched under her aegis, she is now a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera. This biography will attempt to show in greater detail a career that extended from Brooklyn to Prague, from Canada to South America, from parts of America where a lied or aria had never been heard to the centers of culture, Paris and Milan. Written in her tenth decade, it objectively reflects on a life well managed. Compared to Callas, Rise has lived a long life and has escaped notoriety.
Award-winning films and movies, plus those motion pictures that were critically acclaimed, plus some purely personal picks (or should I say, "pix"?) figure in this new movie book by acclaimed (but also disparaged) critic, John Howard Reid. (You can't win them all!)
What makes a "B" movie? This survey examines a hundred typical "B" movies (with complete cast and credit details)from Hollywood's Golden Age, including good movies ("Charlie Chan at Treasure Island", bad movies ("Dangerous Cargo") and cult movies ("Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde").
Basically, there are three measures of success in the cinema. First off are pictures like "The Crowd" and "Applause" that achieve rave reviews and even go on to win awards, but don't recover their negative costs. Then there are the movies the critics hate, but the public enjoys. All three versions of "Back Street", for instance. Finally come the pictures everyone loves, like "From Here To Eternity" or "Sunset Boulevard". In the annals of success in Hollywood's Golden Age, one name stands out above all others: Cecil B. DeMille. His famous pictures reviewed here include both versions of "The Buccaneer", "The Crusades", "Sign of the Cross", "The Story of Dr Wassell" and "Union Pacific". But the book also notes a DeMille "B" movie that tied up a fair amount of money but proved so unpopular it was released in some territories as a support. The book also covers some of Hollywood's other disastrous failures, including the M-G-M movie that cost over $4 million to make and returned virtually nothing.
Over thirty years of interviews with the American director of such classic films as The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The African Queen, and The Night of the Iguana
(Screen World). Movie fans eagerly await each year's new edition of Screen World , the definitive record of the cinema since 1949. Volume 55 provides an illustrated listing of every American and foreign film released in the United States in 2003, all documented with more than 1,000 photographs. The 2004 edition of Screen World features such notable films as Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King , which won all 11 Academy Awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture, tying a record; Clint Eastwood's Mystic River , which won Academy Awards for Best Actor Sean Penn and Best Supporting Actor Tim Robbins; Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation , Academy Award-winner for Best Original Screenplay; and Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World . Also featured are Patty Jenkins' Monster , featuring Academy Award-winner for Best Actress Charlize Theron, and independent successes such as Gurinder Chadha's Bend It like Beckham and Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent . As always, Screen World 's outstanding features include: photographic stills and shots of the four Academy Award-winning actors as well as all acting nominees; a look at the year's most promising new screen personalities; complete filmographies cast and characters, credits, production company, date released, rating and running time; and biographical entries a priceless reference for over 2,400 living stars, including real name, school, and date and place of birth. Now featuring 16 pages of color photos!
Many of your favorite movie musicals are sure to be represented in this book. Classics like "Rose Marie" and "Calamity Jane" rub shoulders with "Artists and Models," "Babes on Broadway," "The Bohemian Girl," "The Inspector General" and "The Kid from Brooklyn." Bing and Bob are off on "The Road to Singapore," Eddie Cantor is involved in "Roman Scandals," while Mitzi Gaynor enjoys her stay in "South Pacific." Will Rogers, Jeanne Crain and Alice Faye all have a go in the various versions of "State Fair" and we catch Deanna Durbin in "Three Smart Girls," "Three Smart Girls Grow Up," "It Started with Eve" and "Something in the Wind." And that's just a small sampling of the wonders in store in "More Movie Musicals.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.